Notes and Editorial Reviews

What a strange--and brave, and utterly intriguing--recording this is. It's just as weird and otherworldly-sounding as I remember from my first encounter with it about nine or 10 years ago. Gregorio Paniagua's interpretations hover at the edge of performance art, from the "sonorous explosion" of the Anakrousis that opens the album through the percussive slams of the Second Delphic Hymn to Apollo. As Paniagua writes in the introduction: "We do not claim, with this record, to be making a mere compilation of what has been preserved of Greek music...It is more in the nature of the personal expression of a profoundly sad feeling in the face of an irremediable loss." Paniagua's sense of loss renders these as much dramaticRead more theatrical statements as they are experiments in musicmaking. Utilizing a small chorus of six and a battery of instruments, he creates a fascinating landscape of sound, with thunderous breaks of fragmented melody and shards of recited and sung poetry breaking up periods of silence.

--Anastasia Tsioulcas, ClassicsToday.com

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A unique musical document! Whereas proofs of the greatness of Ancient Greek architecture and literature still exist in abundance, no more than a few scraps of their music have miraculously survived. They have been gathered together here for the first time in a partly 'archaeological', partly imaginary panorama of this music that was, after all, an integral part of daily life in Ancient Greece.Read less

Customer Reviews

Average Customer Review: ( 1 Customer Review )

absolutely completely differentApril 17, 2012By Sue P. (Seoul, Korea, Republic of)See All My Reviews"I had no idea what to expect, and this was wilder than I would've expected. I simply cannot describe it, except to say it is unlike almost anything I've ever heard. But not quite everything - there were moments where I could hear a relation to Byzantine and Arabic chant. Anyway, I simply cannot judge the authenticity of the music or anything at all. It just blew my mind. What I realized is that ancient Greece is a truly foreign culture, more exotic and strange than I'd realized by reading its literature or looking at its art."Report Abuse